1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for data processing, which are provided to output image data, audio data, and so on, to a display device or an audio output device, and a storage medium containing a program stored to execute the data processing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
At present, information has been distributed home from a wide variety of media. For example, a TV or radio image/audio broadcast, and a character broadcast have been provided through a ground wave, a communication satellite, a CATV cable network, and others. On the other hand, image, audio and character data, and so on, have been provided through a communication line network, e.g., Internet, and E-mail.
In addition, in recent years, a so-called digital broadcasting system has gained in popularity, which is designed to digitize and then transmit a television signal through a communication satellite (CS) broadcast, cable TV (CATV) or the like. This system employs a digital compression/transmission technology, and thereby enables even several hundreds of channels to be secured. As a result, much more television/radio (music) programs than that in the conventional case can now be provided.
Moreover, with the progress in the digitization of AV devices, a larger number of video, and audio sources as package media (medium), e.g., a digital video disk (DVD), a digital video (DV), a digital camera, and so on, are present at home.
Therefore, to enable users to receive and enjoy a wide variety of services including video, audio and character information from various media, a multi-window function has recently been realized, which is designed to simultaneously open a plurality of windows on a large display, and allocate different information input sources to the respective windows. Moreover, it is expected that the future digitization of broadcasting and establishment of a communication infrastructure will increase the number of input routes home for video, audio and character information, and the amount of information, resulting in greater increases in the number of windows and the amount of information to be displayed on the display.
It is also expected that because of the Internet connecting function of a TV receiver, a case will become general, where information regarding a program is obtained through the internet during viewing and listening, or the arrival of E-mail occurs during the viewing and listening of a given video. In addition, there may also be a case, where fixed time receiving by a schedule control function, a timer or the like as a TV accessory function generates an interrupt display event.
Under such circumstances, the function of the multi-window provides one solution as it can simultaneously display a plurality of videos and information. In the conventional multi-window control system, however, the user must change a screen layout or input source switching each time, necessitating considerable time and labor to achieve a screen layout preferred by the user. For example, in the case of 2-screen display of the TV receiver, the user must first select the 2-screen display and, after the switching has been made to the 2-screen display, the user must execute selection and setting so as to display desired input sources on the respective screens.
In other words, to receive and enjoy videos and information supplied from a wide variety of media in a really smooth manner, it is important to select the screen layout of the multi-window and audio when a plurality of input sources are simultaneously viewed and listened to, and to transfer to the multi-window when an interrupt display request event is generated without troubling the user.
Moreover, in the case of the TV receiver or the like, there are frequently a plurality of users (group users), not just one individual user, for one device. It is thus necessary to satisfy the above-described request for each of the plurality of users.